Open Access and PCP PIRE Publications

Traditionally, when a scientist published a paper in a professional journal, it would be available in the research library, for example at a university. Access to this knowledge was therefore limited to those who could go to the library. With the advent of the Internet, however, if your library has a subscription you can download a PDF (Portable Document Format) of scientific articles. Likewise, now authors can send PDF’s of their papers to colleagues. However, strict copyright laws and hefty journal subscription fees still limit access. If you did not have access to a research library, or that library lacked a subscription to a journal you wanted to access, you were either entirely out of luck or you would have paid a one-time fee to download the PDF.

Over the past decade a new kind of scientific publication has emerged called Open Access (OA). In this model, OA journals are oftentimes primarily electronic (without print versions) and articles published in them can be made freely available to anyone anytime via the Web. Instead of journal subscriptions or download fees customarily associated with traditional print, in OA there are no user fees or subscriptions so the only barrier to access is the need for a computer connected to the Internet. Studies have shown that OA greatly increases access. You can simply have access by finding the link, or doi (digital object identifier) number.

In 2010, UF Ph.D. student Catalina Pimiento led the publication of the Panama shark nursery paper in PLoS ONE, a popular OA journal. Since publication, her paper has been accessed on-line almost 13,000 times. “I really liked that the whole process -from submission to publication- was very fast, and that I can track how many people have seen the paper and the social shares of it.” Catalina Pimiento.

A goal of the PCP PIRE research is to produce and increase access to knowledge including broadening participation by persons without access to research libraries. To the extent possible, we will try to publish in OA journals. Instead of a library subscription or user download fee, OA requires an up-front fee paid by the author or their institution, usually ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per article.

PCP PIRE has two articles based on our research discoveries in the current issue of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The featured article describes research led by former UF Ph.D. student Alex Hastings on Panama crocodylians and includes beautiful artwork by current student Danielle Byerly. The second paper describes research led by current U.F. Ph.D. student Aldo Rincon on new anthracothere fossils from the Las Cascadas formation. Thanks to a generous matching allocation from the FLMNH Office of the Director, both of these articles will be OA.